SA vs IND 2018: We lacked intensity in the game, says Faf du Plessis

India won the third Test match at the Wanderers.

Post their defeat in Johannesburg, South African skipper Faf du Plessis said that they lacked intensity throughout the game as compared to India.

“To be hard on ourselves, pretty much from the start of the Test match we weren’t on top of our game. Even the first innings, I thought the total that they got 189 or whatever it was probably 30 runs too many. Top of my head I can remember Virat having 2-3 chances. So all of that, on a low scoring wicket, it all adds up. Even the second innings, they got 220, they should have been 180. So the last innings we should have chased 160 or something like that. All in all, it wasn't a great Test match for our skill".

“In general our consistency with the ball, I think especially on this wicket you need to make make sure you zone in on the wickets, quite straight lines. I thought both innings, we were a little bit short and wide, for most of the Indian innings, which gave them the opportunity to leave a lot more. From a batting perspective we felt that the Indian bowlers made us play a lot more,” du Plessis said in the post-match conference.

He credited India for playing some really good cricket throughout the series which made it an interesting one to watch,

“This was a fantastic series and I have to credit India for playing some really good cricket. All three Test matches that we’ve played, South Africa was on top then India was on top through so many times in the series. In the first two Tests we were relentless with our pressure. We let our guard down in this third game, and they are a quality team, they made sure they captured those opportunities."

“I think they can say the same thing about themselves. In the second Test, they had a lot of opportunities, a lot of dropped chances. So they can sit on the other side and say, ‘We had the opportunity to win this series but we weren’t on top of our game.’ And that’s the difference in a very tight series like this one,” he added.

He rounded off keeping his view on the Wanderers pitch. “The only time I got a little bit concerned was when Dean got hit in the face. That's when I got a little bit concerned for player safety. Even in the Indian innings, there was quite a few guys that got hit on the finger quite regularly. I think if you count the number of times guys got hit, it was much more than usual. You know the excessive sideways movement is tough but not dangerous. As soon as guys started getting hit from a length, that’s when we thought it might be dangerous. But surprisingly the pitch played fine again today, today was fine. So we had the opportunity to chase down the game and we didn't do that."